Former James Madison junior power forward Justin McBride has committed to transfer to Kentucky out of the NCAA Transfer Portal. McBride, who has one season of eligibility remaining, will be playing for his fourth team in as many seasons in college.
McBride made his commitment to the Wildcats following an official visit to campus on Wednesday.
The 6-foot-7, 240-pound McBride is a well-traveled player with previous stops at James Madison, Nevada and Oklahoma State between 2023-26. McBride is coming off a breakout junior season with the Dukes, during which he averaged career-highs with 15.3 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, while starting 30 of his 31 games at James Madison. He became the first JMU player to average 15 points and five boards through a season since Matt Lewis in 2019-20. McBride also shot a consistent 49.4% from the floor and 40% from 3-point range on the season.
Prior to that, McBride averaged 7.8 points and 4.1 rebounds as a key reserve at Nevada, where he started just three of his 34 games with the Wolf Pack during the 2024-25 season. As a true freshman in 2023-24, McBride averaged 2.5 points and 1.5 rebounds while shooting 70.4% (19-of-27) from the floor in 24 games at Oklahoma State.
McBride signed with Oklahoma State as a three-star prospect in the 2023 recruiting cycle out of Plano (Texas) High, where he was the No. 10 player in Texas, the No. 26 power forward in the class and the No. 125 player overall, according to the Rivals Industry Ranking, a weighted composite of all three major recruiting media services.
Every step Mark Pope makes in the NCAA transfer portal is being closely watched by Big Blue Nation. The seat is certainly heating up for Pope, who is facing a pivotal offseason ahead of his third season in Lexington.
McBride’s commitment comes after a difficult run for the Wildcats and Pope, who recently struck out on several coveted transfers over the past week. That includes losing Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman to St. John’s on Monday, and BYU point guard Rob Wright, who elected to return to the Cougars rather than sign with Kentucky last week.
Still, the loss of Freeman proved especially difficult for several prominent Wildcats fans, including KSR founder Matt Jones, who called out Pope and his staff for “mismanagement” after reportedly passing on Colorado‘s Sebastian Rancik with the expectation of landing Freeman. Instead, neither will play in Lexington next season.
“Kentucky essentially passed on Rancik because they were sure they were getting Freeman,” Jones said via X/Twitter on Monday. “They got neither. Mismanagement by a staff that insisted they didn’t need a GM. Fairly impossible to defend.”
McBride becomes Kentucky’s third transfer commitment out of the portal, joining former Washington transfer Zoom Diallo and Furman‘s Alex Wilkins, both guards. Of course, there is still plenty of work to be done before the Wildcats’ 2026-27 roster is finalized, but the addition of McBride chould help quiet a growing discontent among Big Blue Nation.
— On3’s Grifffin McVeigh contributed to this report.